A winning app? They hope so

Published 8:09 pm, Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A view of the mobile app "Ticker Picker Pro" is seen on an iPad at Deadmans Productions on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in Troy, NY. The company built the crowd sourcing stock picking app. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

A view of the mobile app "Ticker Picker Pro" is seen on an iPad at...

Some of the members of the business Deadmans Productions pose for a photograph at their office on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in Troy, NY. Pictured from left to right, Dan Vitale, Ryan Tuck, Kevin Schildhorn, William Houser, Mike Ridley, who is the CEO and founder, Christian Grise and Ken Stevens. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Some of the members of the business Deadmans Productions pose for a...

Kevin Schildhorn a game artist at Deadmans Productions works in his office on a game on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in Troy, NY. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

Kevin Schildhorn a game artist at Deadmans Productions works in his...

The entrance hallway to the offices of Deadmans Productions seen here on Monday, Feb. 13, 2012 in Troy, NY. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union)

About a year ago. Ridley, who works for the state, rented a basement apartment on First Street in Troy and started Deadmans Productions, a software gaming company that targets the mobile applications market.

Ridley and his partners in the venture rolled out several games for iPhone and Andriod devices, with names like Drizzle Drop and The Patriots. The Troy startup had some success, with more than 100,000 downloads.

But that was just a warmup for the app Ridley was secretly developing all along — a stockpicking app based on "crowd sourcing" that gives out daily prizes to the best pickers. Ridley calls this an actionable game because people can actually win something.

But Ridley wants to take this idea to a whole other level. Using algorithims developed at Deadmans, Ridley wants to create a hedge fund that would buy and sell stocks based on the best ideas coming out of the game, which is called Ticker Picker Pro.

The theory of crowd sourcing is that the collective "crowd" can often solve problems better than one individual.

Although the idea has been around for a long time, the combination of mobile phones and social media has made the concept even more powerful. Ridley says that while Ticker Picker was in beta in December and only had a few dozen followers, they were already able to see parallels with people's choices and future market events.

That is why the app is free and the company will be awarding those who can do the most with a fictional $1,000 on the stock market each day with gift cards.

"We believe the data stream is more valuable than the payout," Ridley said.

The plan is to eventually set up an investment fund that will trade using the data in combination with a complicated computer program.

Such algorithmic trading is already common in the hedge fund world, and there has even been one fund created that trades based on Twitter feeds. There is growing research, among academics and even companies like HP, that has found that social media can be used to predict future events.

Ridley is now seeking venture capital for Deadman Productions, which he has been funding himself as he remains in his state job. He also has plans to seek startup funding for the hedge fund.